Aurora Lucero-White Lea

Aurora Lucero-White Lea (February 8, 1894 – 1965) was an American folklorist, writer, and suffragist. She was a proud Nuevomexicana, advocating for bilingual education in English and Spanish and working to preserve the heritage of the Hispanic Southwest. Lucero-White Lea is best known for her 1953 work Literary Folklore of the Hispanic Southwest, a compilation of cultural traditions, songs, and stories collected while traveling northern New Mexico.

Early life Aurora R. Lucero was born in New Mexico on February 8, 1894. She was the eldest of seven children born to Julianita Romero and Antonio J. Lucero, who would serve as New Mexico's first Secretary of State from 1912 to 1916. Her family was wealthy and politically well-connected.

Lucero attended public schools in Las Vegas, beginning her college studies at New Mexico Normal University. In 1916, Lucero moved to Tucumcari, taking her first teaching assignment as the head of the Spanish department in the school system. The speech was an impassioned response to an act requiring complete fluency in English for any New Mexican officeholder, which Nuevomexicanos saw as a form of discrimination. Ella St. Clair Thompson of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, recognizing the importance of working with Spanish-speaking women, asked Lucero and Nina Otero-Warren to speak at the event. Together with Otero-Warren, Lucero insisted on bilingual access to suffrage publications and speeches, saying, "I speak for the Spanish American women who, while conservative, want the best possible laws where their home life is the question at issue."

In 1927, Lucero-White was appointed assistant professor of Spanish at her alma mater, New Mexico Normal University.

She wrote several historical plays, including Los Pastores (1936), based on a traditional Spanish folk-drama, and Kearney Takes Las Vegas (1934), based on the true story of the U.S. occupation of New Mexico under General Stephen W. Kearny.

Selected works